As the Lunar New Year holiday in 2026 comes to an end, a large number of tourists in Hainan are facing difficulties in returning home. The price of return tickets from Sanya has soared from a few hundred yuan to tens of thousands of yuan, leaving many stranded in Hainan. Faced with the exorbitant price of nearly 20,000 yuan for a business class ticket and the economy class being sold out, many families find themselves unable to afford the high cost and have no choice but to stay put.
At the same time, the cross-sea ferry system is also under tremendous pressure. The 2026 “Spring Festival Travel Rush” is the first major test for Hainan since the implementation of the “border closure operation” on December 18, 2025. The efficiency of port traffic, vehicle arrangements for sea crossings, and transportation of new energy vehicles have become major issues. Witnesses say, “Anyone who has been to Hainan can deeply feel the clumsiness and chaos in the management and command of the new port.” People describe the chaotic scene as being “a complete mess.”
After the “border closure,” a “secondary port” management mechanism between the island and the mainland has been established in Hainan. Island trucks must pass through inspection sites, which further complicates the difficulty of port transportation during the peak travel season with overlapping passenger and vehicle flows.
Currently, there is no cross-sea bridge or underwater tunnel between Hainan and Xuwen, Guangdong. Cross-sea transportation mainly relies on:
Xuwen Port ⇄ Haikou Xinhai Port
Xuwen Port ⇄ Haikou Xiuying Port
Xinhai Port is the world’s largest roll-on/roll-off port, handling the vast majority of vehicle and passenger transportation.
Despite the official implementation of “passenger and cargo separation” and reservation systems, during the peak of the “Spring Festival Travel Rush,” the increased vehicle flow has created significant pressure on the roads around the port, leading to noticeable congestion. Private cars must be reserved in advance and strictly adhere to the scheduled entry time, or they will not be allowed into the port area.
On social media, many people traveling to Hainan complain: “Hainan Island is so disappointing this year. I drove over two thousand kilometers, arrived on February 13th, and waited five hours to enter the port. Then on February 19th, I was forced to leave the port because there were no ferry tickets available after that date. It’s really disappointing.”
“Oh my, can you believe it? After buying the tickets, they are not allowing people to board the ship now, saying it’s full. Everyone is just waiting here.”
New energy vehicles have become one of the challenges for island travel this year. Despite the addition of dedicated ships for “green vehicle number” transportation, with a daily capacity of about 5000 new energy vehicles, the demand for crossing the sea with new energy vehicles during the “Spring Festival Travel Rush” has significantly increased, causing an obvious shortage in capacity.
Passenger roll-on/roll-off ships (large ships that can carry both vehicles and passengers directly) have restrictions on the proportion of new energy vehicles loaded on board, allowing only a limited number of new energy vehicles per trip. This has made it much more difficult for electric vehicle owners to secure tickets compared to those with gasoline cars.
According to reports from mainland media, a woman calling the relevant department asked, “Are you in Haikou or Haikou Prison? There are several hundred tickets for gasoline cars, but not a single ticket for new energy cars, several days in a row without any tickets available. When we came to the port, no one told us that we couldn’t leave once we arrived. It’s the peak of the New Year, and we can’t even go back home, is that right?”
A self-media blogger posted a video saying, “I advise everyone not to come to Hainan during the New Year period. It’s now past three in the morning, and I’ve been struggling for 15 hours straight. I woke up at eight thirty yesterday morning and traveled less than 200 kilometers from the starting point to Haian New Port. Midway through, I was forced off the highway. It took me about 9 hours to drive, and then I waited in line for about 3 hours. Once onboard, it took a total of 4 hours from the moment the car got on the shore to when it got off. I’m just paying to suffer, never have I been this exhausted. My eyes can barely stay open. People are lying all over the place in disarray, everyone is tired. I suggest if you haven’t come to Hainan yet, don’t rush to join the chaos. I think this is enough of an experience for me in this lifetime.”
Videos shared by netizens show that ferry cabins traveling between Xinhai Port and Xuwen Port are overcrowded, with many people sitting on the floor of the cabin passageways.
Apart from ferry pressures, the aviation market also experiences a noticeable imbalance in supply and demand. From the sixth to the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, a peak period for people returning home, economy class tickets for direct flights from Sanya to Beijing, Shanghai, and other cities are all sold out, with business class ticket prices ranging from 9,000 to 19,570 yuan.
A one-hour flight from Sanya to Guangzhou is close to ten thousand yuan, causing migrant workers returning to work to bear the high prices out of necessity.
A netizen named @-_-Ershixiong complained: A one-way ticket from Sanya to Urumqi costs 19,570 yuan, with a family of five facing a return cost of nearly 100,000 yuan, far exceeding the budget of an average household.
According to Phoenix Weekly reports, tens of thousands of people have been queuing at the airport since five in the morning, with luggage check-in taking more than an hour. Some tourists, in a rush to catch an early flight, ended up “crawling and falling twice,” and even missed their flights.
The ferry terminal is also severely congested, with a 900-meter drive taking 35 minutes, and after boarding, the “car doors won’t open,” leaving vehicles in a jumble at an abandoned construction site…
With nowhere to vent their emotions, stranded tourists can only create light-hearted jokes about “being laughed at by their own poverty.”